Timeline
Where It All Began It all started with a bang. Not the Big Bang, though this was a very big bang. It was the clash between two gods named Good and Evil. Both had prepared their most powerful magic and attacked each other, causing the Previous Apocalypse, and such an amount of energy was created that it destroyed the multiverse. Well, not all of it: a group of ten spirits had survived, today known as the Spirits of the Blade. They swirled around each other, creating magical energy. This magical energy eventually created actual energy, which in turn created matter. Quarks and atoms and molecules began to form until eventually a sword was created (The Blade of Kindred), spinning in the vacuum of space. This creation of matter continued until eventually Kindred was created, holding the sword, spinning it in the vacuum of space, aided by the spirits. Eventually, a rock was created on which Kindred stood, and that was the first part of Menal. Spacetime spread out in a sphere shape, starting existence where it spread. Eventually, the first planet was created, followed by the first solar system, etc... Dark Arrival It wasn't long after the first planet was finished that Kentaro Cokichi and Painting appeared, simultaneasly. Kentaro was alive during the Previous Apocalypse, and had managed to survive in the AEther, thereby not technically existing, and able to survive the blast. Painting was sent forward through time by an unknown source, just as the Previous Apocalypse was occuring. (This is the only known instance that time travel ever occured; Backwards time travel is impossible, and forward time travel would have to have been done by a being of inconceivable power.) Kentaro became the god of the dead and of neutrality, and Painting became the god of intelligence and evil. The two of them watched over different areas of Menal as it continued to grow, Kindred continuing to spin. Kindred could have stopped creating the multiverse at a certain point, but spacetime would collapse if under a certain size, so Kindred had to keep going. The Spirits of the Blade worked together to create Quantum Fuzz, some of which evolved into basic plant life, but no proper animals had emerged. Painting's Greed Eventually, Painting's evil instincts got the best of him. He desired the power Kindred had and was willing to do anything to obtain them. He tricked one of the Spirits of the Blade into thinking he was the one who was right, and proceeded to attack Kindred, dodging Kentaro. However, he had not done calculations one Kindred's speed, and when he tried to strike, he was directly hit by the sword. The SPirits of the Blade recognized him as evil and launched all their power. All except the one who Painting had tricked. If they had all done so, Painting would have been obliterated. But instead, the best they could do was banish him to a 2nd-dimensional form and exile him from Menal. So when the blade struck, they flooded Painting with all their holy energy, and converted him to a peice of moving paper. It is from this that we get the word Painting today. They cast Painting out of Menal, unable to get back in with this form. However, miscalculation had taught him something he'd never forget: Always be prepared and always know your surroundings. In order to this, he observed patterns in the growth of Menal, and using that information, he was able to predict everything that would ever happen. (With the exception of Jonathon and the changes he would cause. This eventually made things happen completely different from what he expected.) Once he had done this, he conducted further studies on the magical arts, until he was able to retun to Menal as an invisible spirit, a voice in people's head. By the time he came back, billions of years had passed: Menal was a complete universe with different planes, and worms had evolved: the first life beyond plants and fuzz. Painting re-entered Menal as a voice and tricked Kentaro Cokichi into belief that the worms would cause unbalance in the alignments, and that Kindred must be destroyed to rebalance it. (Narration of the trickery written by Lord Apprentice here.)